Washington – The Fund for Investigative Journalism has awarded 16 new grants, totaling nearly $107,000, to support reporting projects on a host of topics. The money goes toward travel, document fees and other expenses incurred by the freelance and independent journalists so they can pursue their investigations. The journalists receiving grants include: Sandra Bartlett, a Toronto-based journalist Abby Ellis, a ...
The Fund for Investigative Journalism has begun recruiting mentors as part of a revamped mentorship program aimed at providing grant recipients access to some of the country’s best investigative journalists. The relaunched program comes with the financial backing of the Scripps Howard Foundation, which recently gave FIJ $5,000. The gift allows FIJ to offer its mentors modest honoraria for their yearlong commitment ...
Steve Burger of WNIN public radio of Indiana delved into the background of a psychologist often hired as an expert court witness after the psychologist was convicted of felony charges for falsifying an evaluation in one case. The psychologist, Albert Fink, had performed dozens of competency evaluations over the last 10 years, and those evaluations were now under question after ...
In her latest package focusing on recidivism in America for USA Today, FIJ/Schuster Institute diversity fellow Lottie Joiner examines how women are faring in a criminal justice system designed with men in mind. Many of the programs that help inmates re-enter society aren’t appropriate for women, Joiner reports. Once an inmate is in the system, it’s hard for her to stay ...
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is proud to announce a pair of gifts that will further the work of independent watchdog journalists. An unsolicited $100,000 gift from the Weissman Family Foundation was a very pleasant surprise. A family representative told FIJ that concerns over an “assault on facts” prompted the foundation’s decision to seek out and financially support an investigative journalism nonprofit. ...
Jeff Kelly Lowenstein has been leading reporters from across the globe in an investigation of the worldwide lottery industry. In the United States, he assembled a team from the Columbia Journalism School and PennLive as part of an ambitious reporting project to better understand how lotteries are gamed by some of their frequent players. The team submitted public records requests ...
(Washington) – The Fund for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) announced today that Bobby Caina Calvan has been named Director of Operations. Calvan is a veteran journalist with experience covering breaking news on political and government beats as well as longform feature writing for major news services and outlets. He has been a reporter for Associated Press, the Boston Globe, and the ...
A team from Carolina Public Press reviewed three years of public records for all 1,200 adult care homes in North Carolina and conducted dozens of interviews with regulators, patient advocates, facility managers and others. The result was a series of stories revealing the inconsistencies and troubling issues that undermine the regulation and oversight of these private, for-profit facilities. (Photo by ...
With no place to house some mentally ill people who could pose a danger to themselves or others, New Hampshire has taken the unusual step of housing them in the psychiatric unit of the state prison — even if they haven’t committed a crime, according to a report by Nancy West, co-published by InDepthNH.org and the New Hampshire Business Review. That’s despite warnings by the ...
A pair of projects by InvestigateWest continues FIJ’s long tradition of supporting journalism that makes a difference. Lawmakers in the states of Washington and Oregon credit the outlet for spurring change. The outlet’s investigation into Washington’s foster care system prompted new laws and a $48 million funding boost to tackle some of the system’s woes. In Oregon, InvestigateWest’s “Unequal Justice” ...